What's the news?
One of the most anticipated (and certainly one of the most heavily-trailed) new cars of 2016 is drawing closer. The seven-seat Skoda Kodiaq SUV will get a full public unveiling at the upcoming Paris Motor Show in September but for now, we'll have to make do with these photos, which have been more tightly cropped than Roy Keane's hair.
Skoda makes much play of "narrow, raked headlights, which are available with full-LED technology" and doors which "are athletically shaped and the tailgate is expressively sculptured" and the "rear lights, with LED technology as standard, shine in the typical Skoda C-shape."
It all looks pretty generic current Skoda to us from these images, though - very much like a Superb Estate wearing lift shoes. Nothing wrong with that of course, but we suspect that the Kodiaq's interior will be more of a selling point than its exterior.
In there, Skoda is claiming that the car will have a class-leading boot, with 720 to 2,065 litres (with the rear seats folded down) of cargo volume. There will also be seats for seven (although we don't know for sure yet that seven seats will be standard across the range, although that seems likely) and Skoda is touting the car's assistance systems including a top-down 'birds eye' parking camera system and a trailer assist that takes over steering duties when backing up with a towed load.
There will also be a raft of new connectivity and communication systems under the name of Skoda Connect, which will be similar to Volkswagens's recently launched Service and Security setup (see our Tiguan BiTurbo review for more on those).
Anything else?
The Kodiaq will get a world premiere in Berlin on the 1st of September.